

Author 



Title 



Imprint 



J 6— 47372-3 OPO 



THE 



UNITED STATES AND FRANCE. 



BY 



,^^'-x %K^ 




y // V EDWARD LABOUIiAYE, 

PROFESSOR IN THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE. ADVOCATE IN THE IMPERIAL COURT OF 
PARIS, AND MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE. 



TRANSLATED FOR THE BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER. 



BOSTON : 
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER. 

1862. 



^46'! 






The pamphlet, which is translated in the following pages, was printed in Paris in September, 
1862, with the following title : — 

" Les Etats Unis et la France, par Edouard Laboulaye, Professeur au College de France, Avocat 
a la Cour Imperiale de Paris, Membre de I'Institut. Paris, 1862." 

The papers of which the pamphlet is made up first appeared in the Paris Journal des Debats 
of August 26, and 27, and having attracted great attention, were collected and printed with 
some additional pages of documentary illustrations, including particularly the important note 
in the policy of Napoleon, appended to the present translation. 

M. Laboulaye, the author of the pamphlet, is well known in Europe as an able publicist, of 
liberal opinions. The argument and tone of his present publication and the close acquaintance 
with American affairs and history which it discloses, will commend it to all readers, as not only 
a clear and thoroughly sympathetic view of the present contest, but i^lso a most intelligent 
statement of the great issues involved. 

The present translation was made for the Boston Daily Advertiser, and was printed in that 
paper in its issues of October 15th and 18th. It has been revised by the translator, preparatory 
to printing it in this form. 

Boston, October, 1862. 



PREFACE. 



This pfttnphlet is merely a new edition of two 
articles i>ublishe(I last month [August! in the Jour- 
nal <les liubats, on the ajipeiirance of JI. de Gaspa- 
rin's excellent book, "L'Amerique devant I'Eu- 
rojie." 

it has been thought that it would be useful to 
give a wilier publicity to an essay in which the 
author has endeavored to demonstrate the three 
following points, — not by arguments which passion 
may dispute, but by proofs that amount to certain- 
ty and facts that cannot be denied. 

1. That slavery, or to be more precise, the desire 
to perpetuate and to extend slavery, and to make it 
the foundation of a new political system is the true 
cause of the Southern Rebellion. 

2. That the South had no constitutional right to 
withdraw from the Union. It cannot allege in justi- 
fication of this extreme measure, a single right vio- 
lated, or a single right threatened. 

3. The commercial interests of France counsel 
neutrality. This is the surest and the speediest 
means of terminating the war. The political inter- 
ests of France enjoin her to remain faithful to the 
great traditions of Louis XVI. and of Napoleon. 
The unity and independence of America, that is to 
say of the sole maritime power that counterpoises 
England, constitutes for all Europe the only guar- 
antee of the liberty of the seas and the peace of the 
world. 

In the estimation of every man of good faith then 
these points must decide the question of recognition 
and of intervention. 

But the tariff? it may be asked, — what have you 
to say about that? 

The tariff is a sheer fiction, — a fiction'got up, I 
might say, to throw dust in the eyes of Europe. It 
was invented on this side of the Atlantic to mask 
the question of slavery and to divert public opinion. 
The tariff played no appreciable part in the separa- 
tion, and there are several reasons why this should 
be so. 

In the first place, what means had the North of 
imposing a tariff on the South by force? 

Uf the thirty-one States which composed the 
Union at the time the tariff was passed, fifteen were 
slave States; and as each State, without regard to 
its population, sends two Senators to the Congress, 
only a single State more was wanted by the South 
to prevent the tariff being voted without its con- 
sent. 

Now it is very far from being the case that all the 
States of the North are manufacturing States: on 
the contrary, the new States of the West — Iowa, 
"Wisconsin, Illinois, Iniliana, Michigan — live by 
agriculture. It is these States that furnish Europe 
with flour, maize, and salted meats. Can any man 
be maile to believe that these States have exercised 
oppression towards the South for an interest which 
did not in the least concern them ? "The pretended 
distinction between slave States and free States as 



being the first agricultural, the others manufactur- 
ing, is absolutely false. Of seventeen free States, 
there are eleven whose industry and whose interests 
are as completely agricultural as those of any of the 
slave States: there are three which are both agricul 
tural and manufioturing; and the others — only 
three out of seventeen— are largely interested in 
manufactures." — [Letter of Mr. Beckwith, cited by 
M. Picard in Le Conjlit Aimiricain, Paris, 1802.] 

Further, is it forgotten that tor more than thirty 
years the presidents and the entire administration 
have always been chosen under the influence of the 
South ? Is it conceivable that the South, always so 
impatient and haughty, should, under these circum- 
stances have acquiesced in oppression ? 

Again : to the honor of the human race be it 
said, no people has ever yet revolted for interest 
merely. At the bottom of all revolutions there is 
some idea, good or bad, true or false. Nothing else 
can make a people rise. What was it that made ' 
America revolt against England in 177t)? Was it an 
insignificant tax, the stamp tax, or a duty on tea? No ; 
the insurrection was for an idea: the Americans were 
resolved that no tax should be imposed without 
their consent. "No i-epresentation, no tax," — that 
was the cry of the revolution. Why did France rise 
in 17S9? Was it that wretched deficit of 40 
millions ! No; she was weary of the old social sys- 
tem: she demanded liberty and equality. In 1830 
it was a question of law that brought on the Three 
Days. This is an historical law which has been in- 
variable. When some interest has been injured, you 
will see a stir among the injured party, you will 
hear complaints and you will hear protests, but you 
will see nothing of that fierce passion that sets a 
whole people on fire, and plunges them into the 
risks of civil war. The true, the only cause which 
stirred the planters to revolt, was ambition, it was 
a mad thirst for dominion, it was a desire to found a 
new Roman empire where they were to tyrannize over 
a subject population. This is a detestable idea, an 
idea abhorrent to the Gospel and to modern civiliza- 
tion: but still it is an idea. To reduce the rebellion 
to a calculation of the dollars and cents, lost by the 
passage of a tariff openly discussed and freely voted, 
is to cast an imputation upon the South which it has 
not deserved. 

Are we told that the citizens of a State have broken 
up the national unity, and raised their parricidal 
hands against their country, all to avoid paying a 
cent more upon a yard of cotton cloth? That 
would be a crime in which absurdity would dispute 
the palm with baseness. The South, blinded 
by her prejudices, and more still by her habit of ex- 
ercising despotism has even in her delusion one 
excuse, and to take this away is to steep her in 
•degradation. In attributing to her violent passions 
rather than mean-spirited covetousness, her adver- 
saries show her better treatment than her apologists. 
May I say, in conclusion, that one single wish has 



governed my pen, and that the desire to be of eervioe on both sides of the ocean, and almost' an article of 

to my country, by showing that in this melancholy faith, that America and France were two sisters 

question her duty and her interest are one and the united by community of interests und by srlorious 

same, and that both enjoin neutrality. recollections. The North has remained faithful to 

In writing these pages, I have never forgotten this friendship,— and are we, out of affection to 

that I am a Frenchman and not an American. And slavery, after a duration of eighty years to break 

yet to say the truth this distinction might be spared. the only alliance which never cost us a sacrifice and 

Until very recent days, until a new line of public never caused us a regret ? ' 

policy was devised for us, it was a masim received Versailles, Sept. 5, 1863. 



THE UNITED STATES AND FRANCE. 



I. SLAVKRV IS TlIE TRUE CAUSE OF THE 

REBELLION. 

Let us begin with a review of the facta, for they 
have an eloiiueuue and a force which notliing can 
excee'i. 

Geneial opinion is not Jeceivecl in thinking {sla- 
very the tine cause of the civil war. A day came 
when the North, weary of a thirty years' subjection 
to a disijraoefiil policy, declared by the election of 
Mr. Lincoln thit servitude should make no further 
progress in .\iiierica. By so doing the North did 
not interfere with the domestic institutions of the 
South. The North had no right to liberate negroes 
that did nut belong to it, or to change laws which 
it had not made, and it simply said to slavery— thou 
shall go no farther. But with the instinct of priv- 
ileged orders, the Southern planters saw distinctly 
that if the growth of slavery was stopped, sla- 
very must die. Instead of resigning themselves 
to a remote emancipation, they "sprung to arms 
and proclaimed that separation which they had 
been perpetually threatening for thirty years, and 
had made use of as the instrument of an am- 
bition which no concessions could appease. The 
very moment they found they no longer had 
the upper hand, the very moment that by the 
iree working of the government the North gained 
a constitutional majority, the politicians of the 
faouth tore up the compact which stood in their way 
Ihe Union, to their minds, had but one meanin" 
and that was, the preponderance of the slavery- 
party, and the instant it could no longer be made 
to serve the purpose of propagating slavery, they 
destroyed it without scruple and without remorse. 
Ihis It is that some have called a patriotic resistiinoe 
to the despotism of the North, a war in which slav- 
ery is only a pretext! Never was an act of violence 
concealed under softer and more innocent names. 

If the proofs of this assertion are required, they 
are but too abundant. For thirty years the South- 
ern leaders have been perpetually engaged in a con- 
spiracy; for thirty years they hafelad but two 
words in their mouth,— the supremacy of slavery 
or separation; for thirty years the history of 
the United States has been a history of 
violent menaces and passionate outbreaks on the 
part of the South, and of concessions and of weak- 
nesses on the part of the North. Channing pre- 
(licted,^twenty-tive years ago, exactly what is goin" 
on at the present moment; and thirty years ago a 
novel written by a Southerner, entitled The Parli- 
zan Leader, lixed the e))och of the triumph of 
slavery and of the separation at 1S61. 

Who was it that in 1830 was the first to proclaim 
the lawfulness of slavery and the right of nullifica- 
tion, that is to say, of secession? That apostle of 
tae bouth, the man whose fatal notions are now 
bearing truit in blood, Mr. Calhoun. 

At that time not less than now, from a regard to 
public opinion, there was a talk .about the Tariff but 
nobody was deceived. President Jackson, who sti- 
fled the lirst germ of rebellion by his decision and 
energy, declared in 1833, with a presentiment which 
has proved correot-"The Tariff is a mere pretence; 
disunion, and the establishment of a Southern Con- 
federacy are their real objects. The next time their 
pretext will be the negro question and slavery." 

Who was It that let loose troops of adventurers 
upon Texas ? W ho was it that in comtempt of the 
law ot nations, in contempt of humauity itself, re- 
established slavery in a territory which had been 
e°{fai";l"sed by the Mexicans ? The South. 

nho was it that stirred up W.alker and his filibus- 
ters to luvade Nicaragua, and Loi ei to attack Ha- 



vana? Who proc aimed that the United States must 
have Cuba to make four new .slave States? Who 
proclaimed that the emancipation of the negroes 
war /"The'soutr''^ ^^ regarded as a declarutitn of 
CM?J^^ " ^Y "PP°s«<J i° '850 ^he admission of 

J:l;tej^^i!:^a^^^;t!j:r^^-^^.;'^!:^^i^ 

^r?" Vheto;^h."°"^' «^"^^^ '^^ Stars^^fter'^i! 

.J^''??^.T'i'V''^'^^=''™'f"Sitive slaves to be 
passed, that barbarous law that laid its clutches on 
the,se poor wretches in a land of freedom , that shame- 
ful law which lorced the officers of a free peoDle to 
act as jadors for slave ownei-s? The South 

Who was it that, after having imposed the Mis- 
sour, Compromise in 1820, had it rescinded in 1850, 
The South'" "■' "' extension of slavery? 

Who invaded Kansas, drove out .and killed the 
free settlers, in order to reduce Kansas to the con 
dition of a slave State ? The South 

Who was it that pro«ured the Dred Scott decision 
to be given that celebra ed decree which authorizes 
the planter to carry his slaves with him wherever he 
may wish, like his horses and his do-s the local 
law being forbidden in any way to°obstiuct or 
abridge the privileges of the master? The South 

Who was It that by these means maybe said to 

?h"msd"e^? ^ ThrCth '^^ "^'^' "^ "'^ ^'- «'^'- 
se^Li^^;.t:ilj-^l:^t^'X,^°)^el.^remon. 

under foot the Constitution of the United State 
W? y°"'hern confederacy, of which all ?he mem: 
bers shall be slave States. If Fremont is chosen 
o..r advice is that the people of the South shouM 
r.se in their majesty, superior to the Jaw and the 
magistrates, take the power into their own hands 
and lay the strong hand of the fremen of "he south 
on the treasury and the archives of the government." 
This was Congressman Brooks, that terrible logic in 
who refu »d Mr. Sumner by savagely beating hm 
the hero to whom the grateful south decreed "a cane 
of lionor" in recompense for his exploits 

TlleSo'ulh "'""''"^'''°°''° ^'■'' asioglehom-? 
And what was the platform of Mr. Lincoln while 

the tariff? Did he threaten the independence of the 
States as to their internal atf^airs? Mr. Lincoln's 
programme embraced simply these points, all clear- 
ly within the Constitution: "No extension of .lav^rv 
beyond its present limits; no more slave States to ha 
admitted into the Union; the adoption of efficUous 
measures against the slave trade; the modification of 
the ugitive slave law and the renunciation of the 
s^ave Stotls "'"°°' ^^"^ '"'■"'' '^^ ^''' States into 

Compared with this declaration of policy what 
now was the programme of Mr. Breckinr^W tl,„ 
candidate of the South ? "Slavery s^af be nifiJna" 
and no longer sectional; in other words, it shal" be 
recognized by the Constitution; it shall be extended 
into the new territories, according to the wi^li of 
tfie people, as the Union shall extend; no State s all 
be al owed to prevent the transit of slaves and the 
fugitive slave law shall be made more s^in'^ent " 

Can anybody deny these facts? Assuredly not 
unless the history of thirty years is to be effaced 
Slavery everywhere and forever, aud atten l.ni; 
upon slavery the threat of separation, that is ho 
phantom which ever since Mr. Calhoun's day has 
beset the United States. Clay and Webster exhaust! 



ed their genius and their lives in devising impossible 
compromises; Channing and Parker proclaimed 
that this cancer would eat away and destroy the 
Union; the most distinguished men of the uresent 
generation, Everett, Bancroft, Sumner, had i-epeated 
the prophecies of Channing; the nomination of 
Fremont, like that of Lincoln, had but one meaning, 
and that was to circumscribe and to concentrate 
servitude. The one effort ef men's minds, in the 
South as in the North, has been directed to preparing 
the triumph either of the policy of liberty or of the 
policy of slavery. For thirty long years has the 
mine been charging Avhich has just been sprung, and 
■which by its explosion threatens to sweep away the 
republic; and the day after the disaster there are 
found publicists in Europe, who come forward and 
announce to us oracularly that we are the dupes of 
appearances, and that people are butcherinc one an- 
other for a tariff ! In good sooth, these gentlemen 
have too much conflden"ce both in their own strong 
imaginations and in the simplicity of the public. 

At last the South throws off the mask and threat- 
ens to secede, unless its demands are instantly com- 
plied with, if the tariff' is the cause, this is the 
moment of all others for them to protest against 
the greediness of the North. Do they do it?— Oh no 

they have not a word to say about that, the only 

question is slavery. In the first moment of intoxi-« 
cation they do not think of Europe, and 
they let us know all that is in their hearts. 
There was at Washington at this time, a president 
■who had given himselt'over, body and soul, to the 
planters. Before leaving oiEce he addressed a last 
appeal to the nation; he conjured the North to con- 
cede everything in order to avoid the destruction 
of the Union. In this his final supplication, hia 
last solemn summons, so to speak, to the offenders, 
■we may of course expect that Mr. Buchanan will 
reproach the North with its rapacity, and call upon 
it to amend its iniquitous tariff'; he will not say so 
much as a word about slavery, since slavery, if we 
are to believe those who understand the matter, had 
absolutely not a straw's weisht in bringing about 
the separation. Let us hear what his words are:— 
"Throughout the year, since our last meeting, 
the country has been eminently prosperous in all its 
material interests. The general health has been ex- 
cellent, our harvests have been abundant, and plen- 
ty smiles throughout the land. Our commerce and 
manufactures have been prosecuted with energy 
and industry, and have yielded fair and ample re- 
turns. In short, no nation in the tide of time has 
ever presented a spectacle of greater material pros- 
perity than we have done until a very recent period. 
"■\Vhy is it, then, that discontent now so exten- 
sively prevails, and the Union of the States, which 
is the source of all these blessings, is threatened 
■with destruction? The long-continued and intem- 
perate interference of the J\'orthern people with the 
question of slavery in the Southerii States has at 
length produced its natural ci^'cc/s.. . .1 have long 
foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of 
the now imoendins danger. This does not proceed 
solely from'the claim on the part of Congress or the 
Territorial Legislatures to exclude slavery from the 
Territories, nor from the efforts of diff'erent States 
to defeat the execution of the fugitive slave law ... . 
The immediate peril .arises not so much from these 
causes as from the fact that the incessant and vio- 
lent agitation of the slavery question througliout 
the North for the last quarter of a century, has at 
length prodvceil its malign influence on the slaves, 
and in'spired them with vague notions of freedom. 
Hence a sense of security no longer exists around 

the family altar Should this apprehension of 

domestic danger extend and intensify itself, then 
disunion will become inevitable, &c. 
"But let us take warnins in time, and remove the 

cause of the danger How easy would it be for 

the American people to settle the slavery question 



forever, and to restore peace and harmony to 
distracted country." 

■What now was it necessary to do in order to 
avoid the impending revolution? According to Mr. 
Buchanan, it would answer the purpose if an 
amendment were inserted in the Constitution, which, 
1, should recognise expressly the right of property 
in slaves; 2, should reserve to the inhabitants of the 
respective territories the right of introducing or of 
rejecting slavery; 3, should sanction the right of 
masters to pursue fugitive slaves into the free States, 
and should declare every state law infringing upon 
this right a violation of the Constitution. In 
other words, the only means of saving the Union 
was to consecrate slavery for all coming time, and 
make it the corner stone of the Constitution. 

Here we have the political legacy of the last Pre- 
sident of the United States, a document proper to 
decide the question before us. And what is the bur- 
den of this address but slavery, and slavery exclusive- 
ly? Really, when certain of tlie European newspapers 
throw in our face such arguments as the tariff, ■we 
almost ready to believe that they are only making 
game of us ? 

The revolution breaks out. The South declares 
th.at it will retain tlie Federal Constitution, and cer- 
tainly this is the very best thing it could do; two .ar- 
ticles only are to be changed, but these t^wo articles 
speak volumes as to the true cause of the rebellion. 
It 13 declared that the sovereign States shall always 
have the right of withdrawing from the confedera- 
cy ^_-„liich proves to a certainty that they could no, 
find such a right in the handiwork of Wi.shingtont 
—and further, according to the proposition of Mr. 
Buchanan, that slavery shall be recognized and pro- 
tected in all States and territories; it is no loiiger to 
be an institution of particular States, "sectional 
as it was called, but it is to be the common law of 
the new empire. Is it not plain after this that slave- 
ry had no part or lot in the rebellion ! 

Is there a readier on whose mind there still remains 
the shadow of a doubt, and who still h.'is a lingering 
fiiith in the fiction, of the tariff? Then let such 
reader listen a moment to Mr. Stephens, the V ice- 
President of the Southern Confederacy, and the 
most eloquent of its orators: — 

"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all 
the agitating questions relating to our peculiar in- 
stitution. Slavery was the immediate cause of the 
late rupture and uresent revolution. Jefferson, in 
his forecast, had anticipated this, as the rock upon 
which the jld Union would split. He was right .... 
The prevailinsr ideas entertained by him and most of 
the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of 
the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of 
the African was in violation of the laws of nature. 
. These ideas, however, were fundamentally 
wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the 
equabtv of r.aces. The government built upon them, 
rested on a sandv foundation; when the storm came 
and the wind blew— it fell. Our new government 
is founded upon exactly tlie opposite ideas; itsfoun- 
dations are laid, its corner stone rests upon the 
great truth that the negro is not equal to the white 
man ; that slavery ; subordination to the superior race, 
is his natural and normal condition. This, our new 
government, is the first in the history of the world 
based upon this great physical, philosophical and 

moral truth The negro bv nature, or by the 

curse against Canaan, is fitted for that conuition 
which he occupies in our system. This stone which 
was rejected by the first builders is become the 
chief stone of the corner in our new edifice." 

I think a man need not be a particularly fervent 
Christian to be disgusted by this sacrilegious abuse 
of one of the grandest expressions of the Bible; but 
slavery is a poison which intoxicates the master, 
and its venom has even corrupted religion. The 
churches of the South hold the same tone as Mr. 
Stephens. In every page of the Gospel they find 



Br?ument<i to justify servitude. It is not the crucified 
(liviuity thoy lulore, it is slavery. 

Ill couiii'mation of this, take a specimen of the 
fiospel as jireacheil by one of the great doctors o 
divinity of the South, the Rev. B. M. Palmer, in his 
church at New Orleans: — 

"Need I pause to show how this system of servi- 
tude underlies and supports our material intcrests'f 
That our wealth consists in our lands and in the 
serfs who till them? That from the nature of our 
products they can only be cultivated by labor 
which must be controlled in order to be 
certain? This argument establishes the na- 
ture and solemnity of our present trust, to 
preserve and transmit our csistin;; system of domes- 
tic servitude, with the right unchallenged by man, 
to so and oast itself wherever Providence and na- 
ture may carry it. This trust we will discharge in 
the face of the worst possible peril. Though war bo 
the aggresalion of all evils, yet should the madness 
of the hour apjieal to the arbitration of the sword, 
we will not shrink even from the baptism of fire. 
Not till the last man has f:xllen behind the last rampart 
shall the sword drop from our hands. . . . The posi- 
tion of the South is at this moment sublime. If she has 
grace given her to know her hour, she will save her 
self, the country and the world. If she will arise in 
her majesty, she will roll back for all time the curse 
that is upon her. If she succumbs now, she trans- 
mits that curse as an heirloom to posterity." 

And this is not the rant of an individual, 
an effusion of the folly and hatred of an 
accidental theologian ; it is the voice of 
the churches of the South. They have 
canonized slavery. The Presbyterians, the Baptists, 
the Methodists, the Episcopalians of the South, have 
all broken with their northern brethren. There is 
now in the United States a Free Christianity and a 
Slave Christianity. Whence came the rupture? 
Not from a question of tariff, or simple supremacy, 
for the church of course takes no part in disputes 
about worldly matters. The letter of the Presbyte- 
rian Synod of the South, addrressed to Ail the 
Chun-hes throuijhoui the World, will let us into the 
origin and cause of this schism proceeding from a 
new dogma — the sanctity of slavery. 

" The antagonism between the North and the 
Soiith on the subject of slavery is the root of all the 
difficulties, which have brought about the rupture of 
the Federal Union and the horrors of an unnatural 
war. It is certain that the North nourishes a pro- 
found antipathy to slavery, while the South is 
equally aniinatcd with zeal in favor of that in- 
stitution. The course of events will necessarily 
strengthen the antipathy of one party and the zeal 
of the other. 

The Synods came to the conclusion that they must 
separate from a hostile sect, and they had the right 
so to do. Bat let them not deceive themselves; it is 
not the North only that they are no longer in com- 
munion with, but the Christian Church all over the 
earth. The gospel in which they discover n. divine 
approbation of slavery is not that of Christ. 

In view of what we have read, what can be truer 
ban these eloquent words of Mr. Sumner : 

"Look at the war as you will, and you will always 
see slavery. Never were the words of the Roman 
orator more applicable: nullumfucinus extilit nisi 
per te, nullum ftagilium sine tc: no guilt unless 
through thee, no crime without thee. Slavery is its 
inspiration, its motive power, its end and aim, its 
be-all and end-all. It is often said that the war will 
make an end to slavery. This is probable. But it 
is surer still that the overthrow of slavery will at 
once make an end of the war." 

What now have the apologists of the South to 
say in answer to these overwhelming arguments, in 
answer to the judgment which the South has pro- 
nounced against herself? Nothing but a mere 
sophism. They shift the question. They tell us 
that the proof that slavery is not a cause of seces- 



sion is found in the fiict that the North never 
wished to abolish slavery: that even at this very 
moment it hesitates to proclaim cmancipatiim. This 
is an admirable way of reasoning, but perhaps those 
who .adopt it do not clearly perceive where it will 
leave them. If the advocates of the South can get 
this pleaallowed, they will ruin their client. Prove, 
if you will, that the North never wished to abolish 
slavery; it still remains true that slavery was with 
the South the sole motive for separation. IIow will 
it then^ be with the conspiracy which the men of 
South Carolina boast has been going on for these 
thirty years ?i Will that consjiiracy be the more 
justifiable when you take away every shadow 
of excuse for it? Is ambition the nobler in 
the very proportion that it breaks the most sa- 
cred of contracts wiltiout )-f«.so«,and even withouta 
pretext to give a color to its violence? The South is 
accused oT having broken up the Union in order to 
be free to extend and penietuate slavery. What 
justification has it to allege for this double 
crime against the country, and against mankind? 
AVill it deny the overwhelming facts, or will it with- 
draw from the words it has pronounced and the acts 
by which it is condemned? Neither: the answer is 
that the South had nothing to fear from tlie north- 
ern feeling about slavery !— and what sort ot defence 
is that? Surely no one can believe that the public 
conscience of Europe is so deadened as not to feel 
that the weakness of the North would be no justifi- 
cation of the South. 

Let us now see what it was that the Free States 
really did? I am not their advocate, and I do not 
approve of all their past conduct; but I cannot re- 
frain from saying that an artitice has ^een employed 
against them which was worn out long ago. In 
every revolution, the party which is iu'the wrong 
never fails to accuse its adversaries of all the evils 
it has itself caused. Words change their meanings. 
Virtue is called a crime, and resistance oppression. 
To defend the laws is to be guilty of violence, to 
maintain the Constitution is tyi-anny. "Audacity ! 
Audacity!" was the motto of Uanton. I presume 
to think that this device has had its day. Sixty 
years of experience of its effects have cured "us of our 
credulity. 

The North then, so it is alleged, never desired to 
put down slavery in the South. 

If by the North, here, is meant the North as a 
constitutional power, the North as represented in 
Congress, the assertion is true. The abolitionists 
never received any encouragment from the authori- 
ties of the government, never received any from 
Congress. No law was ever brought before the 
national Congress for the abolishment of servitude. 
The reason of this is simple enough, and does honor 
to the States: it is that the Constitution stood in the 
way of such a measure, and the North bowed rever- 
ently before the Constitution as before the ark 
of the covenant. In 1787, the thirteen independent 
States abdicated their political sovereignty, 
and tr.ansferred it to the Congress, reserviiig to 
themselves a civil and administrative sovereignty, 
and each State retaining its peculiar laws and insti- 
tutions. Slavery was in the number of these insti- 
tutions. Slavery, therefore, could not be abolished 
in South Carolina save by the representatives of 
South Carolina : this is a point which nobody ever 
disputed. i\lr. Lincoln, on entering on the presi- 
dency, declared, like his predecessors, that he would 
interfere with no State laws and would maintain the 
Constitution. That some enthusiastic souls should 
reproajh the Yankees with their loveof a Union and 

1 "Neither the election of Mr. Lincoln nm- the non- 
execution of the Fu:5itivo Slave Law liad anvt)ii:in to do 
with bringing about the sejiaiatiim. It is a thin;; which 
has been growing and nreparing these thirty years.' 
(Mr. Rhutt in thu S(]uth "Carolina Convention.) At tho 
lirst momont of intoxication everybody' l>oa^■ted of hav- 
ing licen cjnspirins against tho govcrniaent for thirty 
years. 



tlieir devotion to a law that made them keep terms 
■witli slavery (with which they had no right to in- 
termeddle)," I can understand; but I cannot see how 
the toleration, or, if you please, the inertia of the 
North can be made to justify the conduct of the 
South. Does anybody mean to maintain that, be- 
cause the North respected the Constitution.the South 
had a right to violate it? 

Further: the friends of the South tell us that in 
the free States the negroes are held in no sort of 
consideration, that they are worse treated and are 
more unhappy than they are in the South. 

It is true that in the North, through the influence 
of a prejudice unworthy of a Christian people, the 
blacks are looked upon as a race disgraced by the 
brand of servitude, and are not treated as cit- 
izens, ft is also true that at New Orleans the 
planter sometimes takes a certain pleasure in wit- 
nessing the sports of his slaves, as he would in ob- 
serving the gambols of his horses or his dogs, while 
at New York the white man looks down on the black 
man with scorn. But has anybody ever been at the 
troulile to ask the slave whether, in spite of all this, 
he does not envy his brothers in the North? Is it to 
go for nothing that in the North the black man is 
master of his own person, of his wife and children, 
his labor and his possessions? And after all, what 
would the argument prove? It was clearly not out 
q/'love to the negroes that the South left the Union. 
Once more, they tell us that it is at New York and 
Boston that all the slave-traders are fitted out, and 
that the North, which talks so loudly of its love of 
liberty, has been purveyor for the South. 

This again proves nothing, except that everywhere 
infamous speculators are to be found who make no 
account of the blood and lives of men if they can 
only gratify their covetousness. These criminal 
practices (which were a source of profit to the South,) 
though the offence of a few exceptional pirates, have 
been a spot on the fame of the people that has suf- 
fered them, — but what conclusion can be drawn 
from them ? We ask again— did the South revolt to 
avenge this abomination? 

Let us waive all these recriminations, which can 
impose upon nobody, and look at things as they 
are. What the North wanted was, that slavery 
should not be extended, that it should be restricted 
to the limits within which it is now confined, and 
should die out trradually iu a natural way. Here you 
have the true and the only cause of the rebellion, 
and from this you may estimate the criminality or 
the glory that belongs to Mr. Lincoln and his party. 
To go further than this they had no right, and, be- 
sides, to use a beautiful and deeply significant 
expression of Mrs. Stowe, a measureless compassion 
restrained them. To emancipate four millions of 
men in one day, would be to launch the South on a 
career whose uncertainties it may make us tremble 
to contemplate. Bat in marked distinction from the 
high-souled gentlemen who taunt the North with its 
weakness, and who clamor for instantaneous and 
universal emancipation, on the ground of principle, 
in order that they may cover over their real design 
to perpetuate slavery from motives of interest, Mr. 
Lincoln and his friends, with as much courage as 
wisdom, took the sole path which was at once con- 
stitutional and safe. To set impassable bounds to 
this curse of the land, to the end that it might grad- 
ually be reduced and finally extinguished,— this was 
the plan of these excellent men, a noble and benefi- 
cent conception, and one which haply deserved some 
better treatment than the indiflerence or the con- 
tempt of nations that call themselves Christian. 

But was the North really animated by these 
lofty views, in treating with the slave party, and 
electing an anti-slavery President ? Let the facts 
reply. Let us see what services the Congress has 
rendered to the cause of liberty in the course of the 
past year 

The District of Columbia, the seat of the Federal 
Government, bemg within the territory of Mary- 



land and bordering on Virginia, had always been sub- 
ject to slave laws, for the South would not suffer 
an oasis of liberty to exist as a place of refuge be- 
tween two slave States. Negroes were sold at the 
foot of the Capitol, and for thirty years all efforts to 
do away with this scandal hail been iu vain. The 
Congress has just declared the District of Columbia 
tree territory. 

The South was resolved to carry slavery Into the 
territories, immense wastes, into which cultivation 
and civilization were every day making their way. 
The Congress has dedicated all the territories to 
freedom, and has thus shut up slavery within a, 
circle which it cannot overstep. 

The prospect of emancipation fills the masters 
with terror; it involves the loss of a kind of proper- 
ty, not quite respectable to own, to be sure, but 
still consecrated, like all abuses, by time, and 
habit, and by the interests which are bound up with 
it. The Congress has made an oft'er to the slave 
States to contribute largely to the redemption of 
their negroes, and all the people of the United 
States are bound by their action to pay the ransom. 
To concede the possession of rights to free blacks, 
even without the bounds of the United States, has 
hitherto been regarded by the proud Southerners as 
an outrage not to be thought of. Although the 
trade carried on with Hayti was much more consid- 
siderable than the trade with Russia, the old gov- 
ernment never maintained consuls at her ports. The 
very idea of treating the blacks as men and as Chris- 
tians, still worse of going so far as to receive a black 
envoy at Washington, was most revolting to the 
planters. The Congress has recently decided to 
recognize both Hayti and Liberia. 

Under cover of the American flag the slave-trade 
was carried on with impunity. By stimulating na- 
tional jealousy, the right of search, the only means 
of checking this form of piracy, was withheld from 
other nations. The Congress has ratified a treaty 
with England for the suppression of this abomin- 
able traffic. In the interior of the country, where 
justice was in the hands of the democrats, the faithful 
friends of the South, the slave-traders, if brought to 
trial, were shamelessly acquitted. Under the presi- 
dency of Mr. Lincoln they are sentenced to death and 
hanged. Assuredly we have got a long way beyond 
the Ostend Conferences, and threats to CuDa. 

Finally an immense step was taken the day when 
it was decided, in virtue of the rights of war, to 
employ the slaves of rebels in the service of the 
Union, and that the slaves thus employed should be 
entitled to freedom.- This was a terrible blow to 
the South. At present, while all the free and able- 
bodied population of the South is engaged in the 
war, the negroes, by cultivating the laud, are indi- 
rectly adding to the military force of t'lie rebels. 
To free the blacks, therefore, and, if necessary, to 
put arms into their hands, would be to weaken the 
enemy and strengthen the side of liberty. 

All this the Congress has done since the rebellion 
broke out. In one year the North, become its own 
master, has shown how its heart was disposed. 
Whatever shall be the issue of the war, we may say 
that the year 1861 opens the era of emancipation. 
A question which sets thirty millions of men of the 
same blood by the ears is not a matter to be stifled 
by a compromise. 

It is of no use to represent these acts as the off- 
spring of a desire for retaliation, anger and revenge. 

= "Another liill, presented to the Confederate Con- 
gress by the President, JefforEon Davis, pi-,.vides that 
those corps of the Union army which may be composed 
partly of whites and partly of blacks sha.l not onjoy 
the privileses [read rijhts] of war. The negroes, if 
taken, shall !«; sjld, and their commanders hauled." I 
extract this telegrapll despatch from the Frouch news- 
papers of September 3. It gives a pretty accurate idea 
of tlio new code of iDternational law which the South 
will establish when the cause of slavoiy shall have tri- 
umphed. 



9 



All this is absolutely to no purpose, for it remains 
Done tlie less true that the cause of the North is the 
cause of freedom. 

While the North was making such spirited prepa- 
rations for the war, what was the South about ? 
What provoutec-l the South from competing with the 
North for the sympathy of Kurojio 'I What measures 
did they take in behalf of the negroes, and what 
pledges have they given of a seasonable emancipa- 
tion. If the tariff was the true origin of the war, 
and the supremacy of the North the only fear of the 
planters, a fairer occasion could not have present- 
ed itselt for throwing overboard the fatal clog of 
slavery. Let somebody publish a programme of 
what the South proposes to do; that ie the way to 
bring round public opinion. The North is acting, 
and why should the South iireserve silence, when 
she knows that this is so dangerous. 

Let not the South delude herself. Her soldiers 
are brave, her diplomatists adroit. She is keeping 
back |the cotton of which Europe has a pressing 
need, she is tlattering certain political jealousies by 
predicting the approaching dismemberment of tlie 
United States; but uotwithstauding all chances in 
her favor, the South will be deceived in the object 
of her ambition. It is possible that weary of the 
war, the North may submit to the separation of 
some of the States between the AUeghanies and the 
sea; but the new Roman empire which was to 
extend as far as Mexico, the new civilization 
founded on slavery, all that is but a dream 
which is even now vanishing, a bubble which 
will burst in the tirst breeze. To succeed, the South 
must have the help of Europe, and this help she will 
not have. Whatever m.ay be the sufferings of the 
manufacturing classes, and whatever the schemes of 
diplomatists, there is one fact which towers above 
everything else, and that is — 3L.\very. Victory for 
the North is the redemption of four millions of men 
— but triumph for the South is the perpetuation and 
extension of slavery, with all its miseries and all its 
infamies. This is the feeling of Europe, and the 
knowledge of this feeling will hold back more than 
one government. The multitude, whom great poli- 
ticians despise but dare not defy, the fanatics who 
believe in the gospel, the narrow minds whose con- 
ceptions do not soar above liberty, the silly hearts 
that melt at the recital of the sufferings of an un- 
known negro, and all that mass of sentimental peo- 
ple who thi-ow into the balance their love of right 
and of humanity, these always get the better in tlie 
end. The world belongs to those ignorant beings 
who care not a straw for political combinations, and 
who set justice and charity high above their own in- 
terests. 

Frenchmen, is it possible that the cause ef slavery 
should ever become popular with us? Our fathers 
once fought in America with Lafayette and Rocham- 
beau to uiihold freedom there. This is a part of our 
national glory, and it is the service then rendered 
the United States which has caused us to be regarded 
in that country as brothers and frieuds. Shall we 
obliterate the memorable past? Shall the nanie of 
France be associated with the triumph of the South, 
that is, whatever we may do or say, with the endless 
perpetuity of slavery? It is impossible. France, 
we are told, never fights for a selfish interest, but 
always for an idea, f accept this proud motto, and I 
now ask,— if we give help to the South, what idea 
shall we be fujhting for '! 



II. THE SOUTH HAD NO RIGHT TO SEPARATE. 
SEPARATION IS RbVOLnTION. 

Before proceeding to separation, the planters in- 
tended to make sure of Europe. Cotton and free 
trade, those two irresistible allurements, were to 
put at the service of the rebellion all the interests 
of the old continent. Living in the midst of slavery, 
accustomed to exercising hereditary domination, the 
people of the South had not taken into account what 



they call the abolitionist fanaticism. Could they 
imagine that in this age of business, there should still 
be in Europe a great number of persons foolish 
enough to put tlie rights of miserable negroes be- 
fore their own advantage, and to sacrifice themselves 
to such empty words as humanity and liberty ? The 
defenders of the South soon perceived that they were 
on the wrong road; and thereforo one after another 
they have drawn the curtain over this sad tragedy 
of slavery. All the world hates servitude, that is a 
settled thing; so now we are told that no body detests 
it so heartily as those who through pity for the inca- 
pacity of the negro, are obliged to deprive him 
of the fruits of his labor, and to confiscate forever 
his family and his rights. 

The question is now transferred to political ground. 
The South no longer claims the right of tyraTinizing 
over the blacks, but her own independence; it is no 
longer the liberty of millions of men which she con- 
fiscates, it is her own which she defends. Certainly, 
the field is better chosen; these words, liberty and 
independence, always make ua pick up our ears: 
are like the sound of the trumpet to the war-horae; 
but let us take care that we are not misled by a vain 
flourish. 

The United States, it is said, are a Confederation; 
the Constitution authorizes any of the States to sep- 
arate from the rest. 

Of these two arguments, one is based upon a 
word of which the sense is falsified; the other rests 
upon an error. 

Let us begin with the second. It is easy to con- 
sult the Constitution of the United States. The text 
of it is clear, the proceedings of Congress arc within 
reach. Story has written a commentary worthy of 
Roman jurists. Where do we find that the right is 
concede I to one or to many States to separate ? Or 
rather where do we not see that this pretended right 
has never existed ? The compact is perpetual, and 
can only be modified by the majority of the States. 
It is in this manner, besides, that the constitutional 
law wa.s understood up to the day when Mr. Cal- 
houn, the prophet of slavery and of separation, put 
forward his theory of nullification. The President, 
General Jackson, energetically resented this theory 
of anarchy. In his message of 1833, he says to Con- 
gress; "The right of the inhabitants to free them- 
selves at their will, and without the consent of the 
other States, from their most .solemn obligations, 
and to put in peril the liberties and the happiness of 
the millions of men of whom the Union is composed, 
cannot be recognized. To siy that a State may at 
will separate itself from the Uuion, is to say that the 
United States are not a nation." 

Such was the official reply; but, in addition, the 
General caused Mr. Calhoun to be told that, if he 
brought his theories to Washington, he would have 
him hanged; — a threat which, in a free country where 
a man is put to death only by process of law, signifies 
that the President would have had Mr. Calhouti tried 
on a charge of high treason. In other words, 
to attack the national unity is a crime at Washing- 
ton as it is at Paris. The law is the same in the two 
countries. 

Is it now necessary to cite legal authorities to jirove 
that everywhere in the world and alike among na- 
tions as among indiviilu.als, there exists no contract 
which one of the parties can break ,at will ? 

Take for instance an alliance, a simple treaty be- 
tween independent and sovereign nations: this reaty 
will have a certain duration, there will be forms lor 
proclaiming it and for annulling it. Where is the 
dui-ation and the expiration of the Constitution 
fixed ? Where is it stijjulated that any of the parties 
shall have the strange right to break it throuirh ci- 
price and by- force? What rovcriiment hns ever 
admitted this sort ot amicable dismemberme tt,\a 
which the minority would give the law to the ma- 
jority ? When I was a child I once saw a puppet 
which threw away one after another iLs arms, its 
legs and its body, till there was nothing left of it 



10 



but the head, and which then gathered up again 
piece by piece its scattered members. Behold the 
similitude of that chimera of a Constitution which ia 
attributed to the United States ! Between this im- 
possible charter and a living, self-preserving law, 
there is the same difference as between a puppet and 
an animated body. 

It will be said that the new Constitution of the 
South recognizes for all its members the right of 
separation. Yes, undoubtedly, for it was necessary to 
justify the rebellion; the excuse they could not find 
"in the charter which was violated, they have put 
into the new one which they jjroclaimed. In time 
of war and of revolution declarations cost little; 
nobody thinks of their being carried out. But sup- 
pose that today North Carolina should return into 
the Union. Ask yourself if the Southern Confeder- 
acy, thus mutilated, would consent to be cut off 
from Virginia, and acquiesce in its own destruction 
out of regai-d for the liberty of Carolina. Why, 
Virginia has already been divided into two States, 
and do we see that the South has respected the new 
State of Kanawha ! Things are stronger than laws; 
no people can willingly allow itself to be cut in two. 
No, not a, people, it will be answered; but the 
United States are not one people: they are a Con- 
federation—that is to say, a voluntary alliance of 
sovereign States. 

This is a definition invented for the necessities of the 
case, contrary to all the ideas received in the United 
States, to all the actual facts of the last seventj'-five 
years. M. de Gasparin replies in a triumphant 
manner to this objection, which is a mere sophism. 
It is a play upon the word confederatiou- 

The name of confederation, like that of monarchy, 
of republic, &c., is susceptible of different meanings. 
All language is an imperfect instrument, which can- 
not render the shades and the iniinite varieties of hu- 
man conceptions; we are, therefore, obliged to ex- 
press by the same word ideas which have nothing in 
common but a distant analogy. It is custom, it is 
history, which in each country gives to the word its 
significance and stamps it with its legal value. It is 
clear, for example, that the name of liberty has a 
wholly different signification in England from what 
it has on the continent. 

To say that the United States are a confederation, 
is therefore to say nothing unless you show at the 
same time what the United States understand by 
this word. 

That there may be confederations of sovereign 
States history attests, although it nowhere shows us 
an alliance which one of the parties has the 
right to break at will. But that there may be also, 
under the title of confederation, a great number of 
political combinations in which the sovereignty of the 
individual State is surrendered, is what it is easy to 
see by looking round us. 

What is the German Confederation, but an alli- 
ance of sovereign States which cannot disunite? If 
tomorrow Hesse wished to leave the Union, does 
not everybody know that the Diet would oblige her 
to remain, even were it necessary to have recourse 
to arms? Here is a primary form of Confederation 
which condemns the pretentions of the South. But 
even this is a tie too lax for the Germans, who every 
day feel more and more their national unity; there- 
fore tliey attempt to draw the federal knot tighter, 
by changing the system of confederated States 
Cstaaten Bund) into that of a confederation of 
States (Bn;i(i!eft S;acr(); in other terms, the Ger- 
mans desire to borrow of the United States that 
Constitution which places the political sovereignty 
in a central power, and leaves to the individual 
States only civil independence. Can anyone believe 
that if Germany shall one day arrive at that Ameri- 
can unity which has so long been her dream, she 
will easily consent to the rupture of the union she 
has made such sacrifices to bring about? 

The reform so much desired in Germany, Switzer- 
land has almost a hieved. She has put an end to 



the perpetual referenda to the cantonal sovereignty, 
which drove diplomatists to despair. Custom- 
houses, general legislation, supreme jurisdiction, 
the right of making peace and of war, now belong 
to the"Council and to the two Assemblies, which sit 
at Berne. Switzerland is still a confederation, but 
who does not see that the word has changed its 
meaning? It formerly denoted a league of sovereign 
cantons; now it denotes a nation. If tomorrow 
Geneva or Ticino wished to separate, alleging that 
the federal tie cannot bind them, does any one be- 
lieve that Switzerland would not maintain her na- 
tionality with her cannon? And Europe, which has 
an interest in Helvetian neutrality, would it deny to 
the Federal Council the right of subduing the rebel- 
ion? Here, then, again is a confederation which can 
not be left at will. 

What now has Switzerland done in strengthening 
the Federal unity, but distantly imitate the Con- 
stitution of the United States, an admirable combina- 
tion, which avoids at the same time the feebleness of 
the ancient confederations, and the despotism of cen- 
tralization. And how did America attain to that 
grand unity which Germany and Switzerland envy 
her? Is it forgotten that after the peace of 1783, 
America, though mistress of herself, came near per- 
ishing through the jealousy of the sovereign States? 
It was to escape from anarchy that patriots, lite 
Washington, Hamilton, Madison and Jay, propoised 
the Federal compact and induced the States in 1787 
to renounce their individual sovereignties. Before 
the Constitution there were thirteen independent 
and allied States ; after the Constitution there was 
but one American people. 

"These .allied sovereignties," said the Federal 
Court, in 1787, "have changed their league into a 
government and their Congress of ambassadors into 
a legislature." Friends or enemies, federalists or 
partizans of the old order of things, no one was de- 
ceived. Patrick Henry, one of the first advocates 
of the revolution, but an enemy of the Federalists, 
said distinctly, "that this government is a consoli- 
dated government, (that is to say, a unit,) is evi- 
dent. The Constitution says. We the people of 
America, and not JVe the Stales." 

Open the Constitution, and there try to find what 
distinguishes the United States from tlie govern- 
ments of Europe. Nothing but a greater local in- 
dependence. As to the political sovereignty it be- 
longs altogether to the President and to Congress. 
The supreme executive, legislative and judicial 
power, the right of making peace and war are in 
the hands of the central authority. Iiiplomatio 
relations, the army, the navy, the custom-houses, 
the post-offices, coinage, all these privileges of sove- 
reignty have been withdrawn from the States and 
given to the Federal government. It is the Presi- 
dent who commands the militia of the several States ; 
it is he who grants naturahzation; it I is he who re- 
presents the country before tlie world. The Consti- 
tution does not recognise thirty-three nations, but 
one alone which is called the United States. Europe 
follows the Constitution. 

Is all this only a political fiction? In America 
are these different peoples united together by a fede- 
ral tie, as there are in Switzerland German, French, 
Italian cantons? No; in this territory, twelve times 
greater than France, there are only men of the 
same family, who have thesame remembrances, and, 
if slavery lie done away with, the same institutions. 
Undoubtedly there are shades of dift'erence between 
the different States; the character of the first colo- 
nists, the difference of climate, and above all slavery, 
give to the South a peculiar physiognomy; tlieseare 
those provincial varieties found in all countries, and 
which are less marked in America than in old Europe, 
which is all made up of odds and ends. But that 
there can be there an antasonism of race it is impos- 
sible to admit in the case of a natiou which sprang 
from one and the same cradle. The Americans are 
one people; this cannot be too often dinned in the 



11 



ears of Europe. What, I pray, is a. people, if this 
title is rcfusoil to a society of men wlio have the 
same origin, the same language, the same faith, the 
same civilization, the s.ame past, awl who, for 
seventy-five years, have had the same history, the 
same scovernment, the same laws? 

I insist upon this point, because, if the Americans 
are one people (and it is impossible to deny it), the 
recognition of the South raises a question which 
touches us nearly. What is asked of us, whether 
people know it or not, is to introduce into the pub- 
lic law of Christendom a principle of anarchy which 
tomorrow may be turned against ourselves. This 
absolute right of separation wliich is so loudly pro- 
claimed amounts to a denial of all national unity 
It is strange tliat auyoody shouhl ask France to 
proclaim a dogma so contrary to our political faith, 
and to our love of country. 

That no peojilc is made to be the slave of another 
people, is a principle which, God be thanked, is 
now no longer disputed. Tlie emancipation of 
Venice, the liberty of Poland, the enfranchisement 
of the Christian tribes in European Turkey, will be- 
received as the triumph of right over force. But in 
America, where there is no subject people, except 
the tbrgotteu negroes, what is implied in this right 
of separation, as claimed by the South, and as ad- 
vocated by publicists who think themselves states- 
men and defenders of order and peace? 

This new right, this hitherto unheard-of preten- 
tion, may be translated thus: "Every province, every 
fraction of the people has the right to quit the State 
of which it forms a part, and that on the day and 
hour which it likes best. To justify such 
conduct, it is enough to procure a local majori- 
ty, more or less doubtful, and which, besides, 
is only a minority of the nation. To offer resist.ance 
to such separation is an act of tyranny which Eu- 
rope ought not to suffer." 

Everybody will say this is monstrous; neverthe- 
less, it is exactly what we are asked to declare as a 
rule of public law. Has the South been oppressed? 
Was it not absolute mistress of its administration 
and of its internal laws? Had it not in the general 
representation a part proportionate to its popula- 
tion ? Had the North any exclusive political privil- 
eges? Was Mr. Lincoln a despot who would have 
violated his oaths, and trampled under foot the na- 
tional liberties? No, the South in revolting can al- 
lege neither a law broken, nor an outraged right. 
What it complains of is that a change of majority 
was about to transfer the political superiority to the 
North. Is this a cause for rebellion? Is not sub- 
mission to the majority in matters of general inter- 
est the very condition of the existence of a free peo- 
ple ? Is it not the very idea of political liberty, that 
the power of opinion takes the place of the bloody 
game of revolutions? 

If instead of free discussion and an appeal to rea- 
son every discontented minority may have recour.se 
to separation, where would the process of disinte- 
gration and division stop ? Why might not counties 
detach themselves from States? Why might not 
cities isolate themselves from counties? Why might 
not what is today the right of New Orleans 
be tomorrow the right of Geneva, of Cologne, 
or of Strasburg? Let these pronunciamenlos once 
be recognised by political jurisprudence, and who can 
say where this principle of dissolution will end ? 
To go over to an enemy, even in time of war, will 
no longer be treachery; it will be the use of an ab- 
solute and imprescriptible right, viz: — the right of 
separation. This amounts to introducing into inter- 
national law the doctrine of free marriage and o{ 
divorce at will. 

Such are the principles involved in this war. Pas- 
sion may obscure them, but it cannot make them 
not to be. It is possible that the South may g>in 
its point; it will not be the first time that an unjust 
revolt has had a transient success; but what we may 



bo sure of is that the cause of those who break up 
the unity of their country is an impious cause. 
The victory of tlie South will be an accur.scd victory 
and one from which the whole world will suffer. It 
will be not only the triumph of slavery, but it will 
be the destruction of the most patriotic and the 
wisest work of modern times. It will be the intro- 
duction into America of all the evils to which its di- 
visions condemn old Europe, and this without there 
being in the new world the same diversity of races 
and of customs. Standing armies, enormous budgets, 
national rivalries, foreign intrigues, the beginning 
of an endless war, these are the curses which neces- 
sarily will follow upon this sejiaration which some 
think so desirable. Such a prospect cannot but 
strike a profound sadness to the hearts of all lovers 
of peace, liberty and democracy. 

Such being the state of things, I do not hesitate 
to Siiy, that the duty of France is marked out for 
her. Can we stoop to associate the Trench name 
with the maintenance of slavery? Can we give aid 
to men who are engazed in destroying the unity of 
their nation, and can we assist in a proceeding in 
a distant land which here at home we should call 
a sacrilege and a crime? 

Appealing to our love of country and of humani- 
ty, I say. No. 

III. COJnrERCIAL AND POLITICAL INTERESTS 
ALIKE fOUiNSEL FRANCE TO PRESERVE NEU- 
TR.ILirY. 

The false position of the Soath is now fully per- 
ceived, and accordingly her advocates have .shifted 
the question to the ground of our interest. By so 
doing they hope to rid themselves of those over- 
scrupulous politicians, who, while invoking justice, 
only know, it is said, how to construct fine phrases, 
but understand nothing of business. We are familiar 
with this old sophism; and in opposition to it we 
maintain that never was anything clearer than that 
on this point the interest and the duty of the coun- 
try are one. 

France has a two-fold interest at stake in America : 
a commercial interest and a political interest, both 
equally deserving of our attention, although at this 
moment cruel sufierings may make us forget the 
second and h)ok only at the first. 

The scarcity of cotton reduces to misery great 
masses of laborers. Whence came this scarcity? 
Is it the fault of the North? No; the North, 
notwithstanding the war, is willing to buy 
cotton from the insurgents and sell it to 
Europe. The North, on the contrary, greatly 
desires not to complicate an already dita- 
cult position. But the South has pei-ceived from the 
first that it could not gain its point, except with tlie 
suj)port of Europe; it has calculated on getting t'lis 
help at last, though at a hard bargain perhajis, 
by starving us. To induce Europe to intervene, iu 
spite of herself, is the hope and the policy o' the 
confederates. "Let us count for our defence";"' tliey 
say in their newspapers,"neither on our arms, nor on 
our ar.senals, nor on our fortresses; let us count only 
on our cotton. The life or death of whole commu- 
nities is in our hands. If we hold back our cotton 
they will die of hunsrer, and as soon as we bring it 
again into the market, they will take new life."' 
This is the haughty summons upon which we arc to 
lower our flag. 

What means is there of obtaining cotton if the 
South persists in this selfish course which costs us so 
dear? There is but one, and that is the end of the 
war. The end of the war may come in a natural 
way, or it may be decided by the intervention of 
Europe. Of these two ways the second is the more 
dangenms and the less sure. 

If the .\mericans are left to themselves, it is clear 
that the war cannot last long. There are in the 
field a million of men, whom fatieue and the climate 
are daily diminishing. The South is forced to call 



I 



12 



out the men between tlilrty-five and forty-five; its 
young men are exhausted. The Confederate paper 
is at 50 per cent, discount, silver is disappearing 
from the North, where the army costs a million dol- 
lars a day. Oq both sides the immense losses and 
expenses will very soon bring on that weariness and 
debility which reduce the most infuriated opponents 
to accej)t of peace. The more we a void interference, 
the shorter will be tlie struggle, is the best maxim we 
can act upon. It is not only politicians who feel but 
distantly the general misery, that tell us so, but 
English manufacturers, who understand America, 
and who are made sharp-sighted by their sufferings. 
To be always ready to otl'er a friendly mediation, to 
endeavor to shorten by our good offices a fratricidal 
war, such is our duty; but even to secure our 
own interests, let us not go farther. To intervene 
would be to excite on the one side the hopes, on 
the other the anger of two infuriated parties; it 
would be to add fuel to a flame which may set the 
■whole world on fire. This wise neutrality which all 
our previous policy imposes on us, does not com- 
mend itself to a school of writers who wish that 
France should have a hand in everything, at the 
risk of wearing out and exhaustitg the country. 
These are those uneasy and restless people who pro- 
pose to us not to intervene, but to recognize the 
South. But will this recognitiou procure us cotton? 
No; it will not give us the right to breali the block- 
ade, and so it will not end the war. What will it 
gain for us? Nothing, but the loss of that position 
of mediators and friends, which at a favorable mo- 
ment might enable us to put an end to the conflict. 
To recognize the South is to give it our moral sup- 
port, is to declare in advance that its pretensions 
are lawful, to take sides and therefore to abandon 
the position of possible arbitrators. Of what use 
to us will be this measure, which will offend the 
North and put our future in jeopardy? 

llecognition, it is said, will not bind us to make 
■war. That is a mistake. I fancy that those who 
say so, have too much sense to believe it. A great 
country like France never takes a useless step. 
When it declaresfor a people, it does not long remain 
satitfied with a barren declaration. In the train of re- 
cognition of the South, comes war with our old allies. 
Till- North will see a menace in thisilecisive measure. 
She has long been uneasy about the storm which has 
been pointed out to her on the horizon. "Every 
nation torn by civil war," Mr. Lincoln has said, 
"must expect to be treated without respect by 
foreien nations." Let me add also that, rightly or 
wrongly, it is from England that the North fears 
intervention; she still counts on the old and con- 
stant friendship of France. 

If the North does not yield to the first summona 
of England and France, do they mean to go farther? 
Has the probable cost been calculated of the most 
fortunate war, carried on at such a distance, in an 
immense country, among a brave, industrious peo- 
ple who will defend their homes with the energy of 
despair? What are the losses and the sufferings of 
the cotton business compared with the evils and the 
burdens which would be theconsequenceof.au un- 
dertaking longer and more difficult than the Crimean 
expedition? To sustain the policy of the slavery- 
prirty shall we add another thousand millions 
to our national debt,and spend the lives of sixty thou- 
sand men? Of course if the honor of France were a 
stake there should be no hesitation; but the Ameri- 
cans have in no way injured us; they have 
always been our friends. At this moment, 
even, it is in us that they put their trust; the 
neutrality of France is their safety. Under such 
circumstances a war will never be popular in 
France, for it would be in opposition to the inter- 
ests, the ideas, and the feelings of the country. 
But let us suppose that the North yields at the 
first threat of interference; let us suppose that worn 
out with the struggle it succumbs before our armed 
mediation; let us suppose that ^ does not deliver 



up the South to servile war, and thus take an ever- 
lasting vengeance on the party wnich has called in 
a foreign nation; let us suppose that it allows us to 
regulate the dismemberment of America, — all im- 
possible suppositions, when you remember that we 
are speaking of a youthful, ardent and patriotic 
people, a people which has been a year under arms ; — 
when we shall have succeeded in this gigantic en- 
terprise, what have we done? We shall have belied 
all our political traditions, we shall have weakened 
France and strengthened England, while crushing 
our most useful and most faithful allies! These po- 
litical interests are more important than the inter- 
ests of our manufactures; and yet some appear to 
forget this fact, or to wink it out of sight, whenever 
it is convenient for their purposes. 

When Louis XVI. gave his assistance to the insur- 
gent Americans, what was his intention but to avenge 
the insult that we had received in Canada, and 
to raise up on the shore of the Atlantic, a peo- 
ple who would one day come into compe- 
tition with Eugl.and, and would dispute with 
Iier the empire of the seas? Read the correspond- 
ence of M. do Vergonnes; it will be seen that people 
in France were not deceived with regard to the des- 
tinies of America; it was understood as early as 1780 
that it was not a few millions of men who were 
emancipated; it was a new world that France called 
into life. 

When the First Consul sold Louisiana, which he 
would have done better to keep, when he decided to 
give up New Orleans, which the United States were 
ready to pay any price for as the key of the Missis- 
sippi, as a possession without which they could not 
live, v/hat was the policy of Napoleon? lie desired, 
like Louis XVI., to contribute to the power of this 
people, destined in no distant future to act .as coun-. 
terpoise to England. [See Note.] The first Consul 
was not mistaken in his calculations; in the year 
1812 infant America accepted war with the parent 
country, and from that time made the rights of neu- 
trals a reality.- 

From this period England has had no maritime 
war; she has relinquished her pride, she has no 
longer talked of her maritime sovereignty; and why? 
Because opposite her, on the other side of the ocean, 
there was a people, whose growth partakes of the 
incredible, a people determined to go to war the 
very moment she interfered with the liberty of the 
seas. 

This is the result of our French policy, this was our 
retaliation for a century of unfortunate wars, this is 
why the United States have been from the first our 
allies and our friends. Their interest is ours, their 
greatness contributes to ours; the downfall of the 
United States will reduce our jiower and blind is he 
who does not see it. 

What, in fact, would be the effect of the dismem- 
berment of America, but the weakening and the de- 
struction of the United States navy to the advan- 
tage of the English navy ? England is not accus- 
tomed to fight for an idea; the least that she could ex 
act ofthe South after we should have given it freedom 
would be such privileges of navigation as would 
drive out the flag of the North to the advantage of 
the European flag. Besides, the South lives only on 

' Lcs Etats Unis en 1861, p. m. 

-*'We recognize and will maintain the rights of neu- 
trals establi.shed in 17-0 by Catlierine II,, when jilacing 
herself at the head of the nations she proefaimed these 
rights the law of nations." Iieclaration of war by 
Congress, 13 June, 1S12. For eighty years the American 
policy, inspired by Washin'^ton, has been never to inter- 
miniile in the afiairs of Europe, and alwnys to defend 
the rights of neutrals. We owe to this policy the peace 
and the liberty cf the seas. A great puwev, foreign to 
our quarrels, and having no otiier interest tlian its com- 
merce, always neutral consequently, and always inter- 
ested in the defence of neutrals, is an admirable safe- 
guard for us which we should have to invent, if it was 
not made to our hands. The proposition has been made 
to destroy this .=afeguard, and the author of the proposal 
considers himself a statesman. 



13 



borroweil capital; it began the war by repudiating 
twelve huuilreJ million francs tine to Boston iind 
New V'orjj; it (lepcmls upon the advances of speculat- 
ors who will buy its cotton even before it is planted. 
Who will take the place of the North in making 
these necessary advances? Who in return will ob 
am the consi^'ument and the transportation of the 
cotton ? Who will be enriched by this great mono- 
poly ? Who will strengthen its merchant-marine, 
and in consequence its navy, by all that the North 
will lose? Is it France? — or, is it England T 
England, the natural protectress of the Southern 
Confederacy, (which will always require foreign 
support against its neighbors, who wU be more nu- 
merous by reason of their free institutions, and who 
■will never forget the past,) England, mistress of 
the outlets of the Mississippi and of the St. Law- 
rence, will then control New Orleans as she does 
Quebec. She will regain a foothold on the conti- 
nent; and it is we who will have reestablished heB 
in the country from which our fathers drove her 
out. 

Is this idlejealousy ? I am certainly not one of those 
who raise an outcry against perfidious Albion. I 
love and envy the English institutions. I profound- 
ly respect the energy and the virtues of the English 
people; but I know that among nations an equilib- 
rium of forces is the best guaranty of peace. I have 
not forgotten either our past misfortunes or the 
wise conduct of our fathers, and I ask that the work 
of Louis XVI. and of Napoleon may not be destroyed 
in a moment of impatience. There is for every 
country a line of policy dictated by its position, 
which does not depend on men, and which outlives 
dynasties; and it is this policy that I defend. 

England acts on the principle that its navy ought 
always to be twice as powerful as ours, which is the 
same as saying that the English choose always to be 
in a condition to cope with confederated Europe. 
Do away with America, which holds England in 
check and forces her to respect the rights of neu- 
trals, and we may be sure that on the outbreak of 
he first continental war we shall see another mani- 
festation of the ambition of former times, and an 
ascendancy established from which we shall be the 
farst to suffer. To dismember America is the same 
thing as restoring the empire of the seas to our 
rivals; and te maintain the unity of America, is to 
maintain liberty on the ocean and the peace of the 
world. This is what we must never weary of re- 
peating to men who, in order to apply a more than 
doubtful remedy to transient sufferings, would 
be willing to expose us to a repetition of the terrible 
trials of the past. If the United States 
with their thirty-one millions of men had existed in 
1810, can it be thought that the continental block- 
ade would have been possible? If they are crushed 
tomorrow, does not every one see that a repetition 
of this blockade would not be an impossibility, if, 
which God forbid, we should ever experience a dis- 
aster on the ocean? 

Whatever the issue may be, there is, at this time 
a auty to be performed by the friends of liberty 
and by those who wish to maintain the greatness of 
France. They must speak, they must enlighten the 
country; they must show her the abyss toward 
which she is pushed on by those fair spoken poli- 
ticians, who, through love of peace, would force 
us into a war, and who in the name of in- 
dependence would enrol us under the banner 
of slavery. Christians, who believe in the Gos- 
pel and m the rights of an immortal soul, 
even when it is covered by a black skin ■ 
patriots, whose hearts beat for democracy ancf 
liberty ; statesmen, who do not desire the restoration 
of that colonial policy which for two centuries 
stained the seas with blood; Frenchmen, who have 
not forgotten Lafayette nor the glorious memories 
we left behind us in the new world, — it is your cause 
which is trying in the United States. This cause 
has been defended by energetic men for a year with 



equal courage and ability ; our duty is to range 
ourselves round tliem, ai.d to hold aloft with a firm 
hand that old French banner, on which is inscribed, 
Liberty ! 



?Iale. 



POLICY OF NAPOLBON WITH REGARD TO THE 
UNITED STATES. 

It is well known that the First Consul, taking up 
the ideas of M. de Vergennes, made Spain cede Lou- 
isiana back to us. He wished to found a great 
French Colony there which, placed between Ameri- 
cans and Spainiards might control the ambition of 
the one and protect the feebleness of the other. The 
rupture of the Peace of Amiens, foreseen from the 
first, prevented him from following out this project. 
Finding England everywhere in his way, the First 
Consulendeavored to destroy the maritime suprem- 
acy which was a Source of uneasiness to him. 

"The principles of a maritime supremacy," he 
said to his counsellors, "are subversive of one of 
the chief rights that Nature, Science and Genius 
have given to men. It is the right of traversing the 
Seas of the World with as much freedom as the bird 
cleaves the air; of making use of the waves, tiie 
winds, the various climates and productions of the 
globe; of bringing together by means of a bold nav- 
igation people that have been separated since the 
Creation; of carrying civilization into countries 
now given up to ignorance and barbarism. These 
rights England means to keep from all other na- 
tions." 1 

"If we leave," he said again, "if we leave comf 
merce and navigation in the exclusive possession o 
a single people, the whole world will be subjected 
by Its arms, and by that gold which serves it in 
place of soldiers. "2 

It was then that the "Idea occurred to Bonaparte 
to cede Louisiana to the United States, in order to 
increase their power; and on that occasion he ut- 
tered the following words, which are a summary of 
the course of French policy for the last thirty 
years. 

''To deliver the nations of the world from the 
commercial tyranny of England, she musl be 
counterbalanced by a maritime power which may 
one day become her rival, and this power is the 
United States. The English aspire to dispose of 
all the riches of the world. I shall do a service to 
the whole world if I can prevent them from becom- 
ing the masters of America as they have become the 
masters of Asia." ^ 

On signing the treaty of 1803, which doubled the 
extent of the United States, by giving them the im- 
mense territories which were then called Louisiana, 
territories which stretched from the mouth of the 
Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, that is from New 
Orleans to California, Bonaparte said again: — 

"This accession of territory establishes forever the 
power of the United States, and I have now raised 
up against England a maritime rival which soon- 
er or later will humble her pride."* 

The account {by M. Thiers jis neither less interest- 
ing nor less instructive. 

"I shall not retain," said thcFirst Consul to one of 
his ministers, "a possession whichwould not be safe 
in our hands, and which woukl embroil me perhaps 
with the Americans, or would bring on a coldness 
between us. I shall avail myself of it on the con- 

' BarbeMarboIs, Hintoire de la Louisiana. Paris, 1829, 

p. 2hO. 

' Barbp-Marhois, p. 282. 
' Barhc-Marbois, i.>id. 
*Barb6-Marboi8, p. 335. 



14 



trary to attract them to me, to embroil them with 
the English, and I shall create for these last, cne- 
7uics who will avenge i:s sonic day, if u-e do not suc- 
ceed in avenging ourselves My decision is made— 
I shall give Louisiana to the United States." — 
(March, 1803.) 

" It is in this way," continues M. Thiers, " that 
the Americans acquired from France that vast coun- 
try which completed their sway over North Ameri- 
ca and made them the rulers ot the Gulf of Mexico 
for the present and for the future. They are conse- 
quently indebted for their existence and for their 
greatness to the long struggle of France against 
England. To the first act of this struggle they owed 
their independence, to the second the completion of 
their territory." ^ 

The Americans perceived from the first the im- 
portance of this cession and the immense service 
which France had done them. 

"As soon as the treaty was signed," Barbe Mar- 
bois tells us, who was the negotiator on the French 
side, "the three ministers rose, shook hands, and 
Livingston^ expressing the satisfaction they all felt, 
said — 'We have lived long, and this is the best work 
of our whole lives. The treaty we have just signed, 
whicli is equally advantageous to both of the con- 
tracting parties, will change vast solitudes into 
flourishing countries. Today the United Slates 
come into the number qf first class powers : alt ex- 
clusive influence over the affairs of America passes 
from the hands of the English, never to return. 
Ill this way one of theprincipal causes of Europe- 
an rivalries and hatreds is about to cease. Never- 
theless, if wars are inevitable, France will have in 
the new world a natural friend, increasing in 
strength from year tii year, and which cannot fail to 
become powerful and respected on all the seas of the 
world. By the United Stales will be re-csiabhshed 
tlie maritime rights of the nations of the earth, at 
present monopolised by one alone. It is thus that 
these treaties will become as it were a guaranty of 
peace and of harmony between commercial States.'"' 

The English, whose interests made them not less 
clear-sighted than the Americans, felt what a fatal 
blow this cession was to them. In 1809 we see the 
governor of Canada favoring intrigues, of which the 
object was to divide the United States and to separ- 
ate the North and South. We learn the policy of 
the English from a letter of the principal manager 
of the intrigue, a very able man who wished more 



'Thiers, Histoiredu Consulate,!. III.,liv. XVI., pp 
320, 322. 

^ The other American minister was Mr. Monroe, after- 
wards President of the United States. 
' B.arbc -Marbois, page 334. 

8 Barbe-Marbois page 403. 



than fifty years ago to perform the work which the 
South is so patriotically trying to accomplish at this 
moment. 

" We must h.asten on another revolution 
in the United States; we must overthrow 
the only republic whose existence would 
prove that a government founded upon polit- 
ical equality is able in the midst of tumult 
and dissensions to secure the happiness of its people, 
and is in a condition to repel the attacks of foreign- 
ers. The object of Great Britain should be then to 
foment divisions between the A''orth and the South, 
and to extinguish the remains of the affection with 
which the French have inspired this people. JVoth- 
ing need then prevent her from pursuing her de- 
signs in Europe, without troubling herself about the 
resentment of the American democrats. Her su- 
periority on the sea wilt place her in a position to 
dictate her will to the seamen of the A'orth, and 
even to the agriculturists of the South, whose pro- 
ducts would be without value if our naval forces 
should prevent the exportation ofthem.^ 

The enterjjrise miscarried through the patriotism 
and the union of the Americans; but it may be said 
that since then the position of affairs has in no way 
changed. The Americans are still our natural 
friends, the defenders of neutrality; England alone 
can gain by a separation, for this event weakens the 
European continent not less than the New World. 

I may add that, in case she should succeed, En- 
gland would g.ain one of those unfortunate advan- 
tages from which she herself would have to suifer 
some day. She would become again an object of 
hatred to all nations. I do not doubt that enlight- 
ened men like Mr. Gladstone have a sincere de- 
sire to preserve unimpaired the greatness of a nation 
which is after all only the glorious daughter of Pro- 
testant England. Peace is to the advantage alike of 
humanity and of civilization. But there are not 
wanting in England more than elsewhere short 
sighted politicians, who seek in all matters, like a 
character in fable, — 

"First their own good, and then another's harm." 

Here lies the danger. It must always be fatal to 
give to men unlimited power; for it has an intoxi- 
cating influence which turns the strongest heads and 
misleads nations not less than kings. Fifty years of 
peace on the ocean is the glory of the nineteenth 
century. This peace is due chiefly to the neutrality 
of the United States. History tells us how our fa- 
thers, how Louis XVI, how Napoleon, have agreed 
in strengthening this unsurpassable safeguard. Let 
us not destroy their patriotic work in a day. If we 
have no pity for slaves, let us at least have pity for 
our country, and let us preserve for her the friend- 
Bhip of the United States, and peace. 



